This category is packed with travel tips and hacks to help you travel smarter and more efficiently. We share insider secrets, from packing light and navigating airports to finding the best deals and avoiding common travel pitfalls. We also provide tips for staying safe and healthy while traveling, and for making the most of your travel experiences.
Budget Travel Tips: 25 Ways to Travel More and Spend Less (From a Hotel Insider) Affiliate disclosure: Links in this article may earn me a small commission at no extra cost to you. It funds the lukewarm coffee I drink to survive 6am door shifts. That’s the whole arrangement. Budget travel means spending intentionally, not … Read more
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE If you buy through the links in this article, I get a small commission. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, and it helps cover the cost of the coffee that makes this site possible. OVERVIEW Camping alone is safe when you plan properly, share your route, and stop making decisions after dark. Most … Read more
The Filmmaker’s Ultimate Backpacking Checklist (2026) How to Pack for the Backcountry Without Sacrificing Your Cinematic Vision The first time I tried hiking the Juan de Fuca with a cinema rig, I made it forty minutes before my right shoulder went numb. The pack—a hand-me-down Osprey loaded with a Panasonic GH5, three primes, a carbon … Read more
How I Got Scammed at the Colosseum (And How You Won’t) Twenty years behind a camera taught me to spot fake lighting, fake setups, fake performances. But somehow, I missed the fake ticket vendor outside Rome’s Colosseum. The guy had a booth. Professional-looking laminated badges. Even a printed rate card. The sun was brutal, the … Read more
That Bangkok Coffee Shop Moment I’m sitting in a Bangkok café at 2 AM, frantically uploading 47GB of footage from a day of shooting street markets. My flight leaves in six hours. The Wi-Fi keeps dropping. My laptop’s at 23% battery, and the only outlet is behind a guy who’s been asleep at his table … Read more
The Frankfurt Problem I’ve been stopped at Frankfurt customs twice with film gear. The first time, I thought documentation meant having serial numbers written down. Three Pelican cases, one Blackmagic camera, and zero idea what an ATA Carnet was. The customs officer asked for one. I didn’t have it. Two hours later, after proving I … Read more
Pack Like You Mean It: The No-BS Minimalist Packing Guide for Digital Nomads Who Actually Travel Three flights in Bangkok. That’s when I learned. I was dragging two camera bags, a rolling suitcase, and a “personal item” that weighed more than some toddlers through Suvarnabhumi Airport at 2 AM. My back was screaming. My shoulder … Read more
Travel Smart & Save Money Last March, I landed in Bangkok with $47 in my checking account. Not ideal. Especially when I had a three-month shoot scheduled across Southeast Asia. But here’s the thing—I’d been here before. Years of traveling for film projects taught me something most travel blogs won’t tell you: the expensive mistakes … Read more
The Night I Almost Lost Everything in Prague Three years ago, I was shooting B-roll for a travel documentary in Prague’s Old Town. My camera bag sat next to me at an outdoor café—right next to me—while I reviewed footage on my laptop. I looked down for maybe thirty seconds to adjust a color grade. … Read more
The Terminal C Panic That Taught Me Everything Toronto Airport. 5:47 a.m. I’m speed-walking through Terminal 1 with two Pelican 1510 cases—one stuffed with $22,000 in camera bodies and lenses, the other packed with batteries, monitors, and hard drives containing the only existing footage from our “Going Home” shoot. Gate closes in 11 minutes. My … Read more